


Dark Things Happen at the Turn of the Year

by Odamaki



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Djinni & Genies, F/M, Gen, Ghost Stories, M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Minor Character Death, Nymphs & Dryads, Voodoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2018-10-31 09:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10896168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odamaki/pseuds/Odamaki
Summary: Collection of short fics written for Halloween 2016. See chapter notes for details of contents.





	1. Apples

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pre-Johnlock and/or just platonic depending how you want to read it.  
> Magic.

**Apples**

‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away,’ is how the saying goes. Maybe that’s why Harry’s brought him dozens.

“What am I meant to do with all these?” John had asked in frustration, limping around his minute kitchen table, his mobile pinned to his ear.

“Eat them? Freeze them? Throw them around? They’re apples. You were complaining about not having enough fresh food around the place.”

“Yeah, I was thinking more like vegetables. Not umpteen-billion sodding pounds of apples!”

“Oh piss off,” Harry had snapped, and hung up.

There are apples everywhere; in his one spare bowl, balancing precariously. In a Tupperware denuded of its lid on top of the microwave. A bag of them shoved to the back of the fridge. Two placed temptingly by the side of his bed. They are baubles of colour dotted around his grey existence.

The apples are red; a waxy, 1940′s lipstick red, and flawless. But they don’t make John feel hungry. Not much does these days.

Eventually, he peels one. He sits on the edge of his bed and does it with a penknife, using his mother’s trick of rolling the apple in his palm so that the peel comes off in one long strip. The flesh is pale as a church candle, and the smell of apple fills the room.

The peel drops to the floor in a twist and John bends to pick it up as a matter of course. In the old days people tossed it over their shoulder as a charm to find out the name of their lover. Staring, John wonders.

The peel, unmistakably spells a word.

‘Help’, it reads.

Never superstitious, he scrapes it into an illegible ball in his hand and throws it in the bin. He eats the apple; it’s crisp and sour, and the taste lingers on his breath for hours afterwards.

\---

The second apple, taken from the bag in the fridge, is damp and cold. John breaks it apart with his bare hands, like his father used to, using the heels of his thumbs for leverage. It cracks apart and the juice goes everywhere.

He eats it, hesitating. Perhaps the chill of refrigeration has done something to the apple; changed its chemical composition. Maybe something (though he doesn’t know what- there’s nothing else in the fridge) spilt on it. The taste is salty, and as the flesh of the fruit warms in his hand, it trickles ever more steadily.

‘Like sweat’, he thinks at first.

Later, after nightmares, when he’s wiping his face, he recognises at a core level that the fruit also had been weeping, but cannot acknowledge it more than that.

\---

The third apple is dry. It rasps under the knife as he cuts it into quarters, cutting out the core and the hard brown seeds. His mouth puckers on the first bite. It is bitter.

\---

The forth apple, taken hesitantly, is the darkest red John’s ever seen an apple be. It seems to sit forlornly, sagging a little to one side. He digs into it with his knife.

Under the dark red peel is dark red fruit; cherry black, in fact, and before his eyes it begins to ooze a thick red juice.

John heart pounds. The little trickle spreads out in a puddle over the kitchen counter. Strawberry juice is red, though brighter than this. Cherry juice or cranberry sauce is nearer the mark; or old, old port wine.

‘Think of food,’ he tells himself firmly, sweeping it into the bin, untasted. ‘Beetroot bleed. Blackberries stain everything. Some fruits have naturally thick juice.’

He pushes all the rest into the fridge and leaves them there.

\---

The last is a test and a hope. John can’t take his mind off of the bag of apples. Three days pass, and he can’t forget them. He opens the fridge and stares at the bag. The apples have yet to vanish or go off.

His gun is in his bedside drawer, but it seems very final. An apple is fairy-tale, John thinks. He’s eaten one and lived. He’s bitten into two others, and yet lived still. Another might be different.

‘Poison,’ John thinks, contemplating. In some tales, it kills you. In others, you fall into a deep, deep sleep that you never wake from. John’s tired. The idea of it is a tempting one. He’d like to sleep, dreamlessly, and wake only when things are good again. The risk, that it could kill him, that it might not kill him, is even more of a temptation. Once, twice, he takes an apple out and looks at it.

It looks so normal.

It smells so much like any other apple.

On the third time, he bites it, suddenly, before his thoughts can stop him.

The apple screams.

It spills from his hand, and John spits, his ears ringing. He has no idea if the scream was just in his head or somewhere else, or if anyone else could hear it, but it has all but deafened him.

Curves in the peel, salt, bitterness, bleeding- he can convince himself to explain it all away so prosaically. It’s a fluke, a contamination. It’s a bad apple. It’s a strange and unpopular variety. It’s one of Harry’s little jokes.

But even Harry can’t make an apple scream.

John calls her, the broken apple still spinning on the linoleum where he’d dropped it.

“Those apples- where the hell did you get them?”

“What?”

“Tell me where you bought them!”

And she does.

\---

John limps out of his house, his pocket full of apples. He won’t leave them behind. He daren’t. He has to know. If the madness of the apples is real or if it’s his own personal madness- either way he wants proof. He wants to see someone else see it, smell it, taste it, hear it. Or he’ll never be sure.

He walks. It’s a pilgrimage, carrying the apples home in the pockets of his plastic raincoat. He walks through neighbourhoods, past the tube stops, into the city. He walks to the British Museum and then around the back, into a road lined with huge terraced houses. Between two banks of houses, there is, as Harry had told him, a gate. It’s taller than a man, and black cast iron, tipped with gold detailing. John stares.

It should be locked; there IS a lock, but the gate is slightly ajar. Beyond it, against a garden wall, is a table, and the table is piled with apples. “Free” says a sign propped against it. John approaches it.

There are trees poking their heads above the wall, and John follows it. There, at last he finds another gate; smaller and set in to keep people out of the gardens. Inside, there’s a lawn and a shrubbery, and a solitary apple tree.

Under the apple tree, there is a man, reading a book.

“Hello,” John calls.

The man looks up and scowls. John takes an apple from his pocket.

“They’re free, just take as many as you want.”

“I did,” John says. “I brought them back.”

The man slightly lowers his book to look at him. He’s thin, the stranger, and shabby somehow, even though his clothing is nicer than John’s. “I don’t want them.”

“I know, I just... wanted to ask,” John says. The leaves of the apple tree rustle, and with a soft thump, one drops to the grass. The apple in John’s hand beats and aches in a way that to John is deeply familiar. Suddenly he understands why he’s come here.

“Why are you so lonely?” he asks. He cradles the apple in the palm of his hand. It shows him hours sat under its mother tree, reading alone the words of dead men because the living seem so incomprehensible. It tells him of a boy planting a seed- not this boy, just another long lost lonely one. It whispers, ‘help’ in it’s peel. It whispers lovingness for its human.

The man stares.

“I got your message,” John says. He holds the apple out through the bars of the gate. “So I came.”

Slowly the book lolls closed. John catches a glimpse of something arcane before it closes, the black leather falling forgotten to the grass. The man stands, caught between curious and shy. “I don’t know what you mean,” he says, though he does. “And that must not have been convenient.”

John smiles. To the stranger, his eyes are autumn blue, and there are apples in his cheeks. The man holds out his hand and John places the apple there without letting go. It’s heavy. The man looks down. In the places where their fingers have met, the apple is ripening to gold.

“I came anyway,” John says.


	2. Candles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sally Donovan & Philip Anderson  
> Magic

**Candles**

“I’ll bring you a candle, eh?” Angelo says. “Before your lady friend arrives.”

“It’s ok. I um… brought my own.”

Angelo hesitates. The man at the table does too, but there’s an earnestness in his expression that makes Angelo shrug.

“If it’ll fit the holder,” he says, and then a call takes him away to the kitchen.

Anderson has brought a holder as well. Or rather, he’d been given it. There’s not much of the candle left, just a stub of decorative black wax. Carefully he wedges it into the tea-light holder, using a blob of white wax to secure it. And then he lights it.

Nothing happens. He waits and then as a waiter skims past looks at the menu. He’s hungry but too nervous for anything to seem appetising. A breeze makes him look up, and there she is, still dressed from work, but looking young and fresh.

“Sally…”

“Hello, Phil,” she says, distracted. “I’m sorry, I think I forgot we were meeting here. It’s been a hell of a day.”

“Yeah,” he says, “It has.”

She looks at him, and frowns. “What’s with that awful suit?” she asks, and then briskly looks down over his menu. “I’m not that hungry for some reason. Do you mind if I skip straight to mains.”

“Anything,” he says. “How… are you?”

“Fine, pretty good,” she says. “They must have changed the coffee or something; I feel full of beans. What’s up with you? You look wrung out.”

“Long day,” Anderson replies. “It’s so good to see you. You’re beautiful.”

Sally’s head jerks up and she stares at him. “Phil…”

“Sorry. It’s just… I didn’t say it enough. You’re amazing. You’re beautiful. You’re the cleverest person I know.”

“Don’t let Holmes hear you say that,” She says, flustered. He’s never seen her blush before. He should have been more honest sooner. “Or on second thoughts, please do.”

She clears her throat, something nagging at the back of her mind. “Shall we order?”

“In a moment. I just…wanted to talk a bit.”

He looks lost, she thinks. His jacket’s two sizes two big for him; borrowed, probably from Lestrade. Perhaps there was an inquest or a hearing or something. He follows through with cases, she knows. He tends to make them a bit too personal. Perhaps he went to visit a family.

“Have you… seen Holmes today?” she asks. “There was something in the back of mind I wanted to see him about.”

“No,” he replies. “I…” he glances down. The candle is half-gone already. “Sally, do you remember seeing anyone today?”

She frowns. “I don’t know, I’ve been busy. I…” she pauses, touches her head. “I was at the office, and then I went out on that gardens case…”

Anderson swallows. He takes a gulp of water from the glass on the table and forces himself to gently ask, “Do you remember seeing your Auntie Norah?”

Sally’s head jerks up again in surprise. “How do you know about my Auntie Norah?” she says and then it’s like a mist slowly clearing from her face and she looks down and sees- really sees- the candle.

She covers her mouth. When the words slip out again, it’s in a small voice. “I keep forgetting. You just… forget,” she explains. “No,” she adds hastily when Phillip shudders. “No, it’s not bad. I’m ok. Really. I’m ok.”

“I wish I could touch you,” he says. “I’m so sorry, Sally.”

She smiles. “Me too. But I’m ok. Promise. I’m glad you asked me out.”

He laughs through a sob, which he stifles on his sleeve in case anyone thinks to come over to check on him. “Your aunt told me you wanted to talk to me. I thought she was nuts, but I had to know.”

“I told her ages ago, you’d be the only person I know who’d believe it. You should study it,” she adds, the idea occurring to her for the first time. “You’d be a natural. If you can control yourself. Ask my aunt.”

The candle flickers.

“Sally, there’s not much time…”

“Talk to Holmes,” she says. “He needs to find my phone. Bully him, Phil. You’re the only one who can annoy him enough to make him do anything. Put my killer in the pit he deserves to rot in.”

He nods, jerks his head up and down hard, sincere. There’s wax pooling around the wick and the flame is shrinking.

“I threw it,” Sally says, and she’d distracted again, turning her head as though listening to another person talking. “Nan?”

“Sally! Where’s the phone?”

She fades like an echo, and as the candle gutters and goes out, he hears her for the last time.

“Under the wax tree.”


	3. Smoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mystrade  
> Genielock

**Smoke**

It was one of those national emergencies where no one really knew what to do. Lestrade found himself being bounced from official to official, and then ultimately, as the final man’s phone kept shrieking, pushed into an antechamber with the hissed instruction; “Wait here and don’t touch anything!”

  
So he waited. And waited. And waited. He waited to the point where it occurred to him that in the grand scheme of things, one DCI doubling as a witness was not probably as relevant to the situation as what else was going on right now. He’d been, in short, forgotten.

Lestrade dithered. He was deep in the bowels of some government building and was unsure of how to get out. He sat at the desk and cautiously picked up the telephone, only to discover that there was no dial tone. He poked his head into the hall and called ‘hello?’ a few times, but there was no response. It was almost like everyone had gone home. As it turned out, they had.  
He checked his phone- no signal. “Oh shit,” Lestrade swore to himself. The antechamber contained an old-fashioned and dusty desk, but it still had a memo pad on it. He fumbled in his pockets for a pen and sat down to write a note to say that he’d waited as long as he could, but had had to leave. He fumbled around the lamp, throwing up a cloud of dust in the process, and flicked it on at the switch.

As he was writing, Lestrade noticed that the dust, instead of settling, was getting thicker. Alarmingly so, in fact, like smoke. It seemed to ooze around the desk in thick strands. He looked at the lamp. Maybe the bulb was burning off dust from the top. Maybe it was old and the wiring was dodgy. He was about to turn it off when there was a gentle chime and a burst of glitter and suddenly, he was no longer alone.

“Who are you?” The man asked. He was wearing a neat three-piece suit and a scowl, looking down at Lestrade.

“Uh... I was left in here.”

“Oh no. Were you told not to touch anything?”

“Um. Yes?”

“Then why the devil did you touch anything?!” the man demanded, looking concerned. “Where’s Anthea?”

“Who?”

“Oh no, this cannot possibly be true. Who brought you here?”

“I dunno,” Lestrade said, stuck to the chair, too amazed to move. “Some bloke.”

The other man pinched the bridge of his nose. “Some ‘bloke’? Not the Prime Minister?”

“No, I’d have remembered that,” Lestrade said.

“Or the defence secretary?”

“Um, no. I think his name was Paul.”

“This is a disaster. This room should only ever be unlocked in case of a national emergency.”

“Well it was,” Lestrade told him. He explained about the prison and the Tower and all the other mayhem, and Moriarty. The man listened, and then, if anything, he looked even more put out.

“And the only person to even think to let in here is you? The country has gone to the dogs.” The man sat opposite Lestrade and eyeballed him. “Name?”

“DCI Greg Lestrade. You?”

“Oh, a policeman,” the other sniffed. “Well I suppose beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Shut up,” Lestrade said, nettled. The other clamped his mouth closed at once, with a baleful look. “Listen, I just want to go home, thanks. It’s been a long day. Sorry to have bothered you.” He stood up and opened the door. To his irritation, the man followed.

Lestrade did his best to ignore him. “I’m going,” he said over his shoulder, a few corridors later. The man did not reply. A glance back showed him a resigned, and somewhat worried expression, which vanished as soon as the man noticed him looking.

“Alright, what?” Lestrade snapped, turning to confront him. “Say something!” he pressed, when the other didn’t reply.

“Something.”

“Oh very bloody funny,” Lestrade grumped. The other looked embarrassed and annoyed.

“Believe me,” he said, “I wouldn’t have- oh never mind.”

“Can you stop following me?”

“I cannot,” the other man said. “You’ve got my lamp.”

“I have-” Lestrade began, and then froze. He looked down. In his hand, without him even noticing that he’d picked it up from the desk, he was holding the lamp. “Oh. I’m sorry, I don’t even remember picking this up. Did I unplug it?”

“It made you. You’re the master of it now,” the other said, somewhat sourly. “Mycroft Holmes, at your service- unwillingly, I must add,” he held up a finger.

“Come again?”

“Lamp,” Mycroft said sharply, pointing at it. He pivoted his finger to himself. “Genie.” One more pivot and the finger was somewhat accusingly in front of Lestrade’s nose. “Aladdin.” and then to prove his point, the man clicked his fingers, sending up a puff of blue smoke, which glittered.

“What?” Lestrade managed, thoroughly bewildered. “But you’re English.”

“I’m aware.”

“And this lamp’s electric.”

“This too hasn’t escaped my notice, I assure you.”

“It looks like it was made in the 90′s!”

“As was I,” Mycroft answered. “It’s a long story. My wish didn’t go quite as planned, and then I was donated to John Major. For the greater good. I’m supposed to be there-” he pointed back at the office. “In event of a disaster.”

“What about the bombings,” Lestrade demanded, his copper’s mind racing off ahead of his civilian one. “Bugger lot of good you did in those!”  
Mycroft went pale. “What bombings? Who bombed? What bombs?!”

Lestrade explained, and then at Mycroft’s questioning, explained more.

“Three wishes!” Mycroft said, outraged, when he’d finished. “They could have avoided a whole economic crisis, and instead they forgot about me.”

“They forgot about me too. I mean...” Lestrade held up the lamp. “I could put it back?”

“Oh shut up, I need to think.” Mycroft clapped his hands together, and with another gust of smoke, vanished. Lestrade stood, stunned, and then without meaning to, took the lamp home.

\---

Perched on his bedside table, the lamp seemed to fit in well with his motley collection of junk-shop furniture. Tentatively, after he’d steeled himself with a comforting microwave pasta dinner and a large scotch, he rubbed it again.

At once, the man in the three-piece suit puffed into existence.

“Blimey,” Lestrade said.

“Yes, still real,” Mycroft said, still apparently highly irritated. He waved a hand in disdain at Lestrade’s apartment. “May I smoke?”

“Sure. Go ahead,” Lestrade said, leaning back on his pillow and lighting a cigarette of his own. “So you do magic?”

“Within reason, and it’s not to be trifled with,” Mycroft replied firmly. Something resembling a cheroot had misted out of thin air into his fingers. He puffed on it. “Terms and conditions apply.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Lestrade said. “You could do me some wishes and then I wouldn’t be the master any more, would I? I could go and give you to the Queen or something.”

“How would you manage that?” Mycroft asked, witheringly. “I won’t be paraded around like a side show at a circus. Besides, no one would believe you. You barely believe yourself. Clearly no one did,” he added, looking glum.

“How many wishes have you granted?” Lestrade asks.

“None,” Mycroft says, puffing thicker, emerald green smoke from his tiny cigar. “No one wanted to be sensible about it.”

“How d’you mean?”

Mycroft looked at him down an owlish nose. “Supposing you wished for something predictable- a million pounds. I could click my fingers and it would appear in the blink of an eye in cash.”

“Brilliant!”

“Yes, except it would have had to come from somewhere. Really the best way to make you a million pounds is to sit down and go through your finances and use my insight to choose better investment opportunities.”

“Ok. Do that.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Do It. I want to see. That’s my first wish. Sort my back account out.”

Mycroft blew out a long thin stream of pink smoke and then coughed slightly. “Oh alright, it’s not as though I sleep. Do you have a laptop?”

It took more than five hours. Mycroft first sifted through the entire gamut of Lestrade’s personal details and then drew up a contract on a sheet of paper as fine as silk and which vanished, predictably, in a puff of smoke as soon as Lestrade had finished reading the small print. Then Mycroft made phone calls. He typed, he read figures. He completely left Lestrade confused with all of these strange numerical maneuverings.

“That’s incredible,” Lestrade said.

“It’s nothing,” Mycroft replied, bored. “I could do the same when I was human except it took a little longer. I have better insight into transactions yet to come is all. There.” He finished with a flourish of typing and sent a list of papers to print. “It’ll take two to three years to mature but you’ll have in excess of one million pounds in assets by the end. And I’ve hired you a financial manager off of the interest, to keep it going.”

“That’s amazing!”

Lestrade received the faintest hint of a smile at that. He leaned on the opposite side of the desk, frankly enthralled. “Why did you want to be a genie?” he asked.

Mycroft lit up another cigarette, which oozed golden clouds over their heads. “I didn’t, exactly. I,” He coughed, “Underappreciated the effects of the unwritten small print. The previous genie was less… scrupulous, shall we say.”

“Oh. I’m glad you made me read a contract then,” Lestrade replies. “I guess the plan was to aid the nation?”

“Yes,” Mycroft admits, gaze fixed on the clouds above his head. “That was the idea. Again I underestimated the stupidity of others.”

“Can’t you just… work there anyway? Or are you stuck in the lamp?”

“Stuck,” Mycroft said. “Which is peaceful, but what have I achieved?”

Lestrade sat up. “I’ll wish it,” he said. “I mean, no point wishing for a house or a car or anything if I’m going to be rich anyway. But I don’t mind figuring out something good for everyone. We can, I dunno, read the papers tomorrow, and see what would be best.”

Mycroft looked at him calculatingly. “If you mean that,” he said, slowly. “Then I accept.”

\---

They scoured the papers. Lestrade left the lamp at home and went to work, returning with yet more ideas and more documents until the living room looked like a blizzard had hit it.

“Something economic,” Mycroft insisted. “I’m telling you, if we can move the money in the right ways, we could bring down the crime rate and boost production in a few decades.”

“Decades?! What about the kids growing up now? What about my kid?”

“You have children?”

“One. She lives with her mother.”

“I wasn’t trying to pry.”

“It’s fine. Jesus. This is impossible. Alright… what about flooding? Could we fix that?”

“We can fix anything with a better economy,” Mycroft said, and the argument went on again.

They called a stalemate over dinner. Lestrade opened the freezer and pulled out a microwaveable curry and then stopped at Mycroft’s expression of horror.

“What? Is the rat back again?” Lestrade asked, peering down the side of the fridge.

“You have rats?”

“One. Sometimes. I threw a shoe at him and he’s kept his head down since then.”

“I can’t believe you’re voluntarily eating that.”

“What else would I eat?” Lestrade asked, looking at the package. Alright, it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t that bad, was it?

“Anything!” Mycroft replied, eyeing it. “Literally anything.”

Something dawned on Lestrade. “You don’t eat, do you?”

“…I can, but it’s not necessary in this form.”

“Was that something you enjoyed, you know, when you were human? Cooking?”

“No, god no. I can’t cook. Do I look like I cook?” Mycroft asked, with unfeigned concern. “No, I liked… eating. The presentation of the dish. The flavours.”

“You miss it,” Lestrade says, putting the plastic brick of frozen korma on the counter. “Alright, lets go out for dinner.”

“Whatever for? I just told you, I don’t require feeding.”

“Well, why not just for fun. Come out to dinner with me. I can afford it now I’m Mr. Moneybags.”

“You have one million, in a few years time,” Mycroft replied, but he didn’t say no.

He even picked the restaurant.

\---

“I enjoyed this,” Lestrade says, after dinner. Mycroft has mellowed out and even gone so far as to share one of his cigarettes with him. It billows steady streams of silver smoke, and makes his eyeballs tingle. It’s wonderful.

“I really enjoyed this.”

“It was tolerably good,” Mycroft agrees. He has tolerably stuffed himself with a three course dinner that included a whole steak, so this is something of an understatement. They amble back towards Lestrade’s car, puffing companionably.

“Do you miss your friends and family?”

“No. I never had any friends and i was distanced from my family.”

“Oh,” Lestrade says, stopping short. His brain is still fizzing from the magical smoke. “That’s sad. Don’t you get lonely?”

“Yes. Sometimes it’s lonely.” Mycroft blows a shaky smoke ring and then squirms uncomfortably under Lestrade’s gaze. He flicks ash off of his cigarette and then says “Please don’t ask me personal questions so directly. I’m not capable of lying or refusing to answer.”

“Oh. Oh god, I’m sorry.” Lestrade is horrified. “That’s- god, that’s like slavery or something.”

“It’s magic,” Mycroft says, bluntly. “That’s how it works. You’re the master of the lamp, remember.”

“But I could make you do anything! Say anything!” Lestrade is appalled at his own power.

“To an extent. It’s... humiliating rather than dangerous.”

“Well, I won’t. I won’t ask anything else and here on out, you can say ‘no’. I’m giving you express permission. Does that work? Can I do that?”

“Go away,” say Mycroft. “Go boil your head.” He looks delighted. “Oh, what do you know, it does. The sky is- is- ggrrrblue. Bother! I thought I’d got back lying. I miss lying.”

“Tell me a lie,” Lestrade commands promptly.

“I am a tiger.”

Lestrade grins. “Tell me another.”

“I can’t wait to be rid of you and your stupid face,” Mycroft blurts, and then looks surprised. “Excuse me.”

“No, ‘cause... if that’s a lie then you- Oh. Cheers.” Lestrade brightens. “You can stick around if you like then. With my stupid face.”

“No,” Mycroft says, and Lestrade can’t tell if he means it.

\---

Days turn into weeks, which turn into a month, and then a second, and they still can’t decide on how to best serve the country. Mycroft haunts the lamp and enjoys increasing permissions, once Lestrade figures out he has to give them. He comes home and finds the flat redecorated.

He comes home and there’s microwaveable food for dinner, but it didn’t come from the corner shop.

He comes home, and there’s company.

Mycroft, after two decades of enforced peace and quiet inside the lamp has rediscovered himself as a talker. He rarely needs input. He plays with lies again, and saying no. He gets a kick out of it. In truth, so does Lestrade.

They make little forays into bettering the nation, but always long-hand, without magic. An extra bank account is created, into which Lestrade funnels some of his growing investment money.

They use it to make more money, which they use to Do Good on a small scale. It’s not enough for Mycroft.

“I need a real office,” he sighs, flicking Lestrade’s laptop. “With real computers and access to better data without having to hack my way through every time.”

“I could wish-”

“No, no, let’s not be hasty,” Mycroft says at once, busying himself again. “Go and cook something, I have work to do.”

He loves to work, Lestrade realises. He dabbles in everything; finance, environmental technology, politics, medicine and crime. He pitches in with ideas when Lestrade comes home from the yard and talks through his cases with him. Ungraciously, of course, but he still does it.

“I wish,” Lestrade says, impressed, without thinking, “You were free of that lamp.”

Mycroft rounds on him. “No!”

It’s too late. They hear a hiss and by the time they’ve rushed over to the desk, it’s already over. The lamp has simply crumbled, and blown away like old smoke.  
“What have you done?” Mycroft says, staring at it. “It’s gone- I couldn't stop it. The magic’s gone!”

“I didn’t know,” Lestrade says, astonished. “I didn’t know it would do that if I said that. Are you... are you human?”

“I don’t know,” Mycroft says. He looks at his hands. They look the same. He twiddles his forefingers momentarily but nothing appears. A click- nothing. No glitter. No smoke. No chimes. No more wishes.

“Shit. I’m...”

“I’m human,” Mycroft says. He pauses. “I’m hungry.”

“You’re human,” Lestrade says, smiling. “We get like that. And tired. Itchy. Lots of fun things. I suppose... I’m not master of the lamp anymore either.”

“No.”

“Good. I bloody hated it,” Lestrade says, surprising him. “Let’s have dinner. Then we’ll get you reinstated as a proper person and you can go and get a real job.”

“What?”

“Look I might be a millionaire, but you’ve got to start doing your part of the rent if you’re going to be sleeping in the spare room.”

Mycroft looks startled, and then offended. “Spare room?”

“Well the other one’s my room.”

“Bollocks to that, we’ll move something bigger.”

“We will?”

“Of course we will,” Mycroft says, already planning. “There’s no space for my clothes in your room.”


	4. Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moly is another name for snowdrops.
> 
> Mollstrade. Dryad/Forest spirit.

** Forest **

Trees upon trees, long grown out of sight of the lights of the village. The ground underfoot was uneven and wet, even marshy in places. This was still part of the old world.

There are forgotten paths in the forest, and forgotten graves. The man stumbled along a path of his own creation, sinking ankle deep into the leaf mold in places. The dark was almost absolute, pierced only by the fragile light of his lamp. His horse was gone, he knew not where, and his men had stopped responding to his shouts.

No doubt they were gone too.

This was the old world. Men did not belong in it.

He paused for breath, leaning on a mossy outcrop. His body steamed in the dark, a lone sliver of warmth in the place. He had heard no birds and seen no animals. No doubt they’d seen him. The man carried a bow across his back and a knife at his hip and this was all. He kept one hand on the knife.

This was the old world. Iron had power there.

He did not say out loud that he was lost, though he was. He’d been foolish enough to follow the elf-lights and now, in almost every sense of the word, he was lost.

If he could survive through till dawn, he might find his way back home.

For that he needed luck and shelter. The latter he could build for himself, but he had little hope for the former. This was the old world. Luck had little to do with anything, when wit and wisdom could serve much better.

He climbed to higher ground, weaving between the whispering trees (or else, that was just the air moving in the leaves) until it felt drier underfoot. The brush thinned out a little even as the trees became yet more imposing until at last, he came out into a clearing. Here a great tree had fallen, leaving a space for the grass to reclaim, and overhead the stars to peep through.

Standing, hand on the hilt of his knife, he looked up, hoping to see stars he knew. But this was the old world, and the stars were only friends to each other.

A fire would take off the chill, but he didn’t dare risk it. Instead he crouched on the brighter, up to his haunches in dry leaves, and ate the ration from his pocket. Dried meat and dried fruit, a final gulp of water. This worried him more than anything; would he dare risk the water here or not?

The clearing suited him. The light allowed him to see without his lamp, and it would be something fey indeed that would be able to slip up behind him here. The leaves were thick and dry, and though a poor bed, warmer than nothing. He crouched in them, back to the trunk, his knife in his lap.

He nodded.

She woke even as he began to fall asleep, stretching her limbs out. The cold did not bother her, and the warmth of him was almost uncomfortable.

“Human,” she murmured. She stepped out; light across the surface of the leaves, long-limbed and young. He would not have noticed her there when he arrived, dwarfed by the great fallen trunk. She shook out her hair and crouched to observe him.

“Old?” she wondered, for her experience of them was but little. His hair was moonish silver in colour, but not elfin. His eyes were closed, his hands rough, his clothes made of animal. She could not draw too close- too much iron- but she admired the pulse in his neck. So quick compared to her own.

“Wake,” she said and he stirred.

At the sight of her, he stood. She followed, rising to match him, though smaller. She had no fear of anyone observing them. She was usually the only one awake at this time of year.

“Why are you here?” She asked. “Tell me your name.”

He was too wise to do that. This was the old world and names had power. He held his knife in plain sight. “Peace; I am looking for a way out of the forest.”

“There is a way,” she told him, still curious. “It’s very far.”

“Will you show me?”

“What will you give me?”

Doubt crossed his face. “What would you accept?”

“Your company?” She suggested. “Everyone is sleeping.” She gestured to the forest; the blanket of leaves, the patches of snow, the bare grasping limbs of the trees.

“For how long?”

“Until you leave the forest,” she said. “Would that suit you? What can I call you?”

He thought. “Gavin.”

“That’s not your name.”

“It’s not,” he said, with a smile. “And what do I call you?”

“Moly,” she said, “I was born from it.” He did not notice the tiny flower at the base of the fallen trunk. The Moly’s sisters carpeted the dells despite the snow, almost invisible.

“Molly,” he said, because he was human, and then because he was a man and she was not, he put away his knife. She took his hand. “I’ll come with you,” she said, “out of the forest. I’ve always wanted to.”

“Yes,” he agreed, and let her touch his eyelids. Then he slept.

\---

They left the forest in increments. The grass grew and overtook the trunk, which rotted. New trees grew from it. Moly flourished every spring, and so did men. The village became a town, became a city.

She woke first, and marvelled at the changes. In leaving the forest, he’d given her something; a touch of his own humanity, which she’d taken for his own good. She rose and made her self a coat of Moly, and from there she went into the city to wait for him. It was loud and alive; she preferred the cool and the quiet. She worked with the dead, and when she was ready, she went back for him.


	5. Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kinda Johnlock.   
> Monsters/Not human

** Fire   
**

Sherlock hears the sirens from the underground station as he emerges. The scarlet engine roars past, blaring, even as he pauses to locate the source of the noise. Blinking blue flashes from his retinas, Sherlock tilts on his heel. That’s local...

He sees the smoke next: gobs of it, rearing above the chimney pots. There’s far too much for a mean little wood stove. It’s far too black. Something explodes. Sherlock likewise bursts into action. 

The road has been cordoned off. There are police cars, a car-ambulance and fire-engines throwing water in gouts over the burning buildings. The flames are a wall rising a dozen feet into the air above even the highest point of the building. Even as Sherlock watches, in horror, a portion of the roof crumbles in. 

“No!” 

He pushes at the crowd, elbowing a gawking woman in the ribs. 

“Move, let me through! _Let me through_!” 

They part unwillingly before his desperation; he tears through the plastic cordon despite the shout of a police officer, but Sherlock can go no further anyway. The heat is tremendous. His vision is filled with roaring orange- and it does roar; it’s so loud.

“Step _back, sir!”_

“That’s my flat- that’s mine;” Sherlock moans, sagging into the tugging grasp of the police. “John... JOHN!” 

He’d left him having a lie in. He’d gone off for just half an hour. He hadn’t been smoking, the Bunsen burner hadn’t been on. Had he left the gas burning on the stove? Was this his fault? 

“John-!” 

He staggers back beyond the reach of the flames. The firefighters are battling to keep the neighbouring houses from going up. In a blur of faces, Sherlock sees Mrs. Turner, and then to his relief, Mrs. Hudson. He falls almost at her feet and she clings to him.

“Oh Sherlock, Sherlock, my house!” 

“Where’s John?” 

“My handbag’s in there with all my-”

“Mrs. Hudson! Where’s _John?”_

She stares at him blankly, with dawning fright. “I thought he was with you...” she whispers. Bile rises in Sherlock’s throat. He pivots and fumbles at the nearest shoulder wearing a uniform. 

“Please,” he begs, “Please. Please, there’s someone in there.”

There’s a suck of air and then a deafening boom as the whole structure, awash with fire, collapses. Sherlock stares. The gut of the house protrudes, brick jutting at the sky like cracked ribs. 

“Fuck! Sorry,” the police officer says, turning, flustered. “What did you say?” He looks at Sherlock’s face. “Sit down,” he says, and nothing more when Sherlock quietly sinks to the floor. 

\---

The fire burns for hours. Lestrade arrives and tries to comfort him, but there’s no comfort in the world anymore. He leaves with Mrs. Hudson instead when Mycroft arrives. Sherlock doesn’t care. 

Mycroft says a lot, and then he says nothing. Worse, he says that he's sorry. Sherlock stands on the road and watches 221 Baker Street burn into rubble, and the nicest thing Mycroft has ever done and will ever do again is in not forcing him to leave. He waits with him, instead, in an idling car a thoughtful distance from Sherlock’s grief. 

When the fire has been at long last bought to heel, and the house is ash and embers, clicking as it cools, then Sherlock allows his brother to slip his hand into the crook of his elbow and lead him away. 

\---

He refuses the sedative. He refuses the spare bed. He sits instead, still clasping the orange paramedic’s blanket around his shoulders, and relives the hiss of the flames. 

John can’t be gone. 

He watched the house burn to the ground but he still cannot believe it. He’d thought he might do, but he can’t. He will never be content until he has seen John’s remains with his own eyes, confirmed it. 

John Watson’s too important to be dead. 

\---

Sherlock slips out before dawn. The horizon is a pale sketch of buildings as he walks, uninterested, past the street-lamps that are blinking out one by one. He doesn’t feel his feet, though they ache, as they take him back to Baker Street. 

It’s quiet there now. The cordon has been tightened up to surround just the ravished remains, which are stark black and dusted with ash. It smokes, even now. 

The shell of the building is there; the lower floor, cafe and no doubt the basement flat, now filled with debris from the fallen upper storeys. A roof tile crunches under Sherlock’s foot as he climbs the tape to approach the mess. A chair, blackened with soot but still remarkably chair-shaped, perches on the top of the pile. The ground is warm under his feet. He’s sensible to the fact that he shouldn’t touch anything.  

He tries to reconstruct the building. Where would John have been? In his bed, at the top of the house. Would he have asphyxiated first? Or had he tried to escape and become trapped? Had the floor fallen out beneath him? 

Where would his bones lie?

The questions keep him calm, up to a certain point. 

“John.” 

The pile is still settling. It drops and cracks now and then. The ash slumps and then stirs. Sherlock watches it, blindly, still thinking. Still weeping. Then before his eyes, an arm emerges. 

It’s black as coal, grasping, the flesh pulled back so that the nails protrude (or perhaps the nails are longer so that the flesh just looks pulled back), but he recognises it. 

Words fail him. 

The hand digs into the ground and hauls, pulling forth a shoulder and the crown of a head. The back heaves, spilling rubble, and something rumbles and flares. 

He is fire made life; Sherlock sees it burning down his throat as he coughs; not just inside but out, in a magma-like streak all the way down the man’s belly, searing bright against the absolute black of his skin. A torso, a knee, and then a leg. 

The clothes are gone; burnt away. The body is alien to Sherlock but he knows the face despite the changes, and more than anything, he knows John when he heaves himself an inch further from the rubble and swears. 

“Fuck’s sakes.” 

“John.” 

John turns; his eyes are no longer blue but fireball-yellow. He gulps and recoils from Sherlock’s reaching hand. 

“Don’t touch me!” 

Sherlock stops short at once, panting, wide-eyed in disbelief. 

“I’m... hot,” John mutters. He squirms loose from the pile and shakes himself, dislodging filth and ash with no more concern than if he’d been brushing off a light drizzle of rain. Sherlock stares.

John is not actually on fire, he’s just so brightly coloured in places that he glows as though he is. From behind, he blends in with the rubble; pitch black with an ashy speckling, a touch bumpy. A thick slab of a tail continues the line of his backbone, making him look a little like he’s got three legs. The yellow starts at the point of his chin, pencil thin, and streaks down, cut through and speckled with red like a fiery thrush’s egg. It covers the greater part of his chest, his stomach, his genitals and then curves to line the insides of his legs, fading out around the knees. 

John shakes again and rubs soot from his eyes. “Say something,” he says to Sherlock’s silence, as awkward and furious as John Watson always is. Sherlock could say a great many things. ‘What’, to begin with, and ‘how’ to follow up. ‘Who’ or ‘how long?’ are fair contenders, along with a simple, primordial, inarticulate scream. 

Instead he forces himself straight to the most important things. 

“Where the hell have you been? I was- I was frightened! I watched it burn!” 

John looks at him, and the reptile eyes he’s wearing go molten soft, like candle light. “I’m sorry.”

Why the hell is he sorry? Sherlock wants to know. How can he stand there and apologise for surviving something impossible. For being so impossible. He wants to touch him. 

“I got stuck. I’ve been digging,” John says. He wipes his hand on his thigh and the fingers look stubbier and more human. He’s still covered in muck when he touches Sherlock’s hand. His fingers don’t burn but he’s hot-water-bottle hot. 

John rumbles again, a deep earthy noise. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t get out any quicker. I was going to come and find you.” His body is uncomfortably warm against Sherlock’s, but he holds him and Sherlock won’t let go. The drops that land on John’s shoulder run a short way and then, in the heat, dry up.


End file.
